OCA General Meeting
Friday June 8th 2018, 7:30 PM
Chapman University
Free and open to public more

The Search for Particle Dark Matter and Dark Sectors

The existence of dark matter is currently the strongest reason to expect the existence of new kinds of fundamental particles. The search for the new particles that make up dark matter has been ongoing for many decades, and I will review the current status. More recently, the search has been generalized to "dark sectors," which may contain not only new matter particles, but also new forces. I will give an overview of dark sectors and some of the exciting new experiments designed to find them.

Jonathan Feng

Jonathan Feng is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UC Irvine. He was an undergraduate at Harvard, went to Cambridge for two years on a Marshall Scholarship, and then did his Ph.D. at Stanford. He joined the UC Irvine faculty in 2001 and became Professor and Chancellor's Fellow in 2006. His work explores the deep connections between our understanding of the Universe at the smallest and largest length scales and has been recognized by awards from the NSF and the Sloan, Simons, and Guggenheim Foundations. Professor Feng's research and interviews have been featured in Science, Nature, the Washington Post, USA Today, and other popular venues. He has also narrated animated comics about physics that have appeared on PBS television, and he wrote a Scientific American cover story that won the National Magazine Award. At UC Irvine, he is the co-founder of the lecture series “What Matters to Me and Why,'' which brings together students, faculty, and staff to hear speakers talk about their most meaningful commitments and beliefs, with the goal of fostering an atmosphere of community on campus.